A Change of Heart
by Suite Sambo
Summary: Neville Longbottom comes to Hogwarts and teaches by example, but not only the children learn lessons. This fic is a gen!fic featuring a friendship between Neville and Severus. Written for the 2013 Anti Valentine's Day fest for the Severus Sighs community on Insane Journal.


_Written for the 2013 Anti-Valentine's Day Fest for the Severus Sighs Community on Insane Journal to Prompt 6: It is better to be feared than loved... Or so Severus tries to believe._

_**Disclaimer:** This is a work of fiction. The characters and their worlds belong to their original writers and no copyright infringement or offense is intended. No money was made from this story._

_/\_

**_A Change of Heart_**

When Pomona Sprout came to him that cold day in February and requested an apprentice, he stared at her aging, gentle face and frowned.

"You are planning to retire, then."

Her shoulders slumped.

"Yes," she admitted. "In two or three years, and I thought that an apprentice might ease the way in replacing me."

"You have someone in mind?"

"I do." She smiled at him. He could see in her eyes that she was fond of her choice, but he did not smile back. After all, her decision to retire was certainly not making things easier for him.

He was not surprised to see Neville Longbottom in the greenhouses. Six years after the Final Battle and the boy had gone on to study Horticulture and Botany before spending two years on his mastery in Herbology. He knew all about Neville Longbottom's career from Harry Potter, the pain in his side who, despite him never opening his office door in welcome, still turned up at Hogwarts nearly every month to visit. He knew from Potter's prattle that both Luna Lovegood and Hannah Abbott had broken the young man's heart and he had sworn off relationships. He knew a hell of a lot more than he wanted to know about any of his employees thanks to Potter, in fact.

And while it was a fact of post-war life that Harry Potter no longer feared him, he was very careful to make sure those living at Hogwarts did.

He had occasion to watch Longbottom from time to time, as he interacted with the students in the Great Hall at mealtime, or worked side by side with Pomona during the Dragon Pox outbreak to extract the cooling salve from the hybrid magical aloe plants. Longbottom was a strange mixed blend of the Gryffindor he had shown himself to be during his seventh year at Hogwarts and the nervous child whose greatest fear had been the resident Potions Master. The students seemed drawn to him now, and Severus would come upon him at a table in the Great Hall during study hours from time to time, helping second years with their homework, or quizzing the fifth year O.W.L. students, or working one on one with a surprising array of students, Slytherins, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs. He seemed to have an unending well of patience and a ready smile for any and all. Severus met those smiles with a scrutinizing gaze and a curt nod. His gaze made many shoulders slump but strangely, not Longbottom's.

Toward the end of that first year of apprenticeship, a week before the fifth years would begin their O.W.L. testing, Severus found Longbottom working on Defense with no fewer than a dozen students out on the Quidditch pitch. He was escorting an inspector from the Ministry who had come to shore up the support charms on the stands, and they both paused to watch Neville work with a diminutive Slytherin, calling out jinxes then deflecting each as she threw them at him, all to the cheers and applause of the students who stood safely out of the way, watching and waiting their turns.

"New Defense Professor again, Headmaster?" asked the inspector, grinning. Despite the curse on the position being broken, Hogwarts had gone through three Defense professors since the end of the war.

Severus turned, surprised. "Longbottom?" The corner of his mouth curled up in a derision that did not come from his cloistered heart. "Longbottom is Pomona Sprout's _Herbology_ Apprentice."

The inspector whistled as Neville deftly deflected a jelly legs jinx. "Looks like a Defense Professor to me, Headmaster."

Severus narrowed his eyes and watched Longbottom. The children had noticed him now and, as expected, their demeanor changed in the presence of the stern Headmaster. Ties were straightened, postures became cautious, rigid. The low chatter died away. The steady performance of the student dueling faltered.

Severus frowned, then, with a glance at the inspector who had wandered off and was climbing the stands, he strode forward. Neville held his hand up to the girl opposite him and his wand hand dropped to his side as he turned.

"I have been told," said Severus, nodding at Longbottom and directing his words to the students, "extra points are awarded in the Defense O.W.L. for any student who can produce a corporeal Patronus." He folded his arms across his chest and swept his gaze over the fifth years. They exchanged fearful glances. _A corporeal what?_

Longbottom looked at him in surprise. "The Patronus charm isn't taught to fifth years, Headmaster."

Severus narrowed his eyes. He knew the charm was not on the curriculum. If he had forgotten, it was only because watching Longbottom and the students had transported him back to another day. To a day when students had been armed, and fighting, and had needed to learn jinxes and curses a lot more damaging than the jelly legs jinx. To a time when the sixth and seventh years who had been able to produce corporeal Patronuses used them to counter Dementors. Patronuses were, after all, weapons to fight fear.

They were all staring at him now. He needed to say something.

"That didn't keep you from learning it, Mr. Longbottom.". His voice was soft and low and held something that could have been mistaken for a veiled threat.

Neville stared at Severus, then seemed to come to a decision. He looked over the gathered students. "Fortunately, these students didn't _need_ to learn it, Headmaster." He didn't add _like I did_. He looked back at Severus, then returned his attention to the students. "But, since there are potential extra points involved…."

Their eyes were on him now.

"A Patronus is a type of magical guardian, a projection of your most positive feelings. It's used to defend against dark creatures such as Dementors. It takes the shape of an animal – an animal that might represent your feelings, your personality, your needs, or even someone important in your life. Think of it as a positive energy force – to cast it successfully, you have to be able to focus on an incredibly happy thought – like earning that O.W.L. in Herbology…."

The students all laughed. Longbottom grinned at them.

"The incantation is '_Expecto Patronum_'," said Neville, demonstrating the wand movement. "You have to really focus on a very happy thought. The more you focus, the stronger the Patronus."

He turned slightly, so that he was facing away from the students, staring out over the Quidditch Pitch. He took a deep breath, and released it.

"_Expecto Patronum_!" he said, surprising even Severus with the strength of his voice.

A pulse of light seemed to shoot from the end of his wand and Severus wondered, for a moment, if the young man could even produce a true corporeal Patronus. But Neville stood still as the light zoomed back toward him, dancing around his head then alighting on his outstretched hand.

"A hummingbird," he said to the students, all of whom were looking at him in confusion. "No, it's not the kind of animal that seems the most logical choice for a protector, but it's incredibly fast and easily distracts one's enemies. And it has more energy and endurance than even my friend Ron's Jack Russell Terrier."

As the students walked past Severus on their way back to the castle, he heard one of them whisper, "I bet the Headmaster's Patronus is something _terrifying_."

He could have dispelled that notion right then, pulled out his wand and produced the gentle doe that to this day had not changed a hair. But he did not.

It was, after all, better to be feared than loved.

/\

Professor Longbottom taught by example.

And over that year, and the next, and the following when Neville Longbottom was officially Herbology Professor Longbottom, Severus slowly discovered that he was not too old to learn.

_People treat you as you treat them. _

_If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you want to teach others how to get it right eventually, get your hands dirty and dig right in with them._

_Self-made barriers keep others out, but they also keep you imprisoned within._

_Fear is not respect. _

_Love is a shield; fear is a weapon._

_Love allows; fear dictates._

It was a slow unfolding, a gradual course correction.

But it changed Hogwarts.

And it changed Severus.

It changed him slowly, for skin hardened from long years of exposure takes its time in softening.

Neville Longbottom became a friend, and, within the space of five years, his Deputy Headmaster.

He came to accept Harry Potter's visits to the castle, to even welcome them. He scoffed when Harry insisted on giving his second child Severus' name, but when Harry left his office, he looked at the photograph in his hand and hoped the feeling in his chest, as if his heart was slightly too big for its confines, was not an impending coronary.

When Neville and Hannah Abbott found each other again, older, wiser, surer, he stood up beside Harry Potter and Ron Weasley with Neville.

He allowed himself—or the champagne did—to be coaxed into asking Hannah's aunt to dance at the wedding. She regarded him suspiciously – she had known him in school, after all—but stood with a resigned sigh and walked with him to the dance floor. They discovered that neither liked to dance, nor did they like crowds, but they both enjoyed classical music, a good British mystery novel, complaining about the Ministry and being left alone when they were feeling under the weather. They went about the relationship cautiously and without fanfare.

Hogwarts was still orderly, and structured, and disciplined. But no one walked in fear anymore.

Not since Pomona Sprout chose Neville Longbottom as her replacement.

Not since Neville Longbottom taught the Headmaster that, when it comes down to it, it is better to be loved….than feared.

_Fin_


End file.
